Patients with schizophrenia have difficulty processing visual motion signals including biological motion (BM). A recent fMRI study found altered activation within the posterior superior temporal sulcus in patients with schizophrenia during BM perception. In addition, some frontal areas including ventral premotor cortex are known to be involved in biological motion perception in healthy individuals. However, it is unknown whether patients with schizophrenia have abnormal brain functioning in frontal areas while perceiving biological motion. The present study examined frontal activation associated with biological motion perception in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls with fMRI data. In healthy controls, a portion of the ventral premotor area and the inferior frontal gyri exhibited specific activation to biological motion stimuli, which was not observed in schizophrenia patients. A dorsal portion of the superior frontal cortex was activated when non-biological motion was misperceived as biological in healthy controls while overall activation level was lower in schizophrenia. Anterior parts of the prefrontal cortex showed suppression during biological motion perception task in healthy controls, whereas no specific activation was observed in the patients with schizophrenia. These results indicate that schizophrenia patients exhibit abnormal frontal brain activation relative to healthy controls in biological motion perception, suggesting altered activities in frontal areas including the mirror neuron system.
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